I shaved the heads of all my seven children. This made it far easier to tattoo them, and I’m not a tattoo artist so I appreciated the advantage offered. On the head of my oldest son I tattooed the name Tyler. On the head of my oldest daughter I inscribed in the flesh the name Helena. On the head of my third born I wrote the numeral 3, and so on from there because I had not gotten around to naming the rest. The process took a long time and they were all late for school, so I beat them with a wooden spoon and sent them to their rooms. It was only a matter of hours before each had gelled and could be served to my guests guilt-free.

A clatter at the window; my buddy Rabe had come over to invite me to shoot bee-bee guns. He’d shot the sill as a prank, the scamp. I snuck out the window, leaving my guests to figure out how to eat the gelled children all on their own. Rabe snorted like a pig and danced in a circle; he was happy to see me.

A group of scarecrows was standing around doing nothing, like a bunch of fags. We ducked down behind a couple bails of hay and took aim, shooting the scarecrows all over their tatty bodies. They didn’t do anything about it, like a bunch of fags.

“I got a idea,” I told Rabe.

“What’s the idea, geniustein?” he asked as if he didn’t believe I had an idea at all.

“Let’s recruit these fags for our baseball team,” I said, and Rabe seemed to agree that that was an idea, so we went to work sticking baseball cards into their clothes, filling them out with these collectibles mixed into the hay, their vital essence. Once they had become baseball players, infused with the vital essence of the cards, they started running and pitching and hitting. But they refused to join our team. They said we had nothing reasonable to offer them and refused us, like a bunch of fags.

“Shit, it’s time for my vitamins. I got blood poisoning on my father’s side,” Rabe said and evaporated. I held my breath because I didn’t want to inhale him. Having your best bud in you is disturbing and I vowed never to let it happen to me again. Once, my pet mouse Sylvain Sylvain crawled into my kidney during surgery. The veterinarian was frantic to find him because if he didn’t finish his surgery Sylvain Sylvain might die. But he didn’t die; he simply fused with me in the way some sports fans eventually join their teams. When I thought about it I’d try to push cheese into my urethra as a treat and root for the local sport’s team, which was now accepting scarecrows. Rats!

“Damnit, it’s time for supper!” I had to rush back to my house, which was now at the store buying pirated VHS tapes of the origin of the universe. He was hungry for supper, the little rascal, and ate up almost every inch of food I had to offer. “Just like babies, these houses,” I informed a homeless man defecating in the aisle of the store. “You don’t want to waste your time on them, unless you like babies. And who does?” The homeless man, who was probably Portuguese, ignored my words and handed me a sausage of indeterminate variety. I watched the pirated VHS tape frantically for a clue about the sausage’s origin. After much scientific analysis, I determined it was a Portuguese sausage and retrospectively labeled the man a Portuguese. Was this a mistake? I wondered about it for quite some time, while I rolled my house back to my property.

The local meteorologist observed my strange journey. “I’m all mixed up!” he said and laughed, enjoying the trip quite unseasonably for a weatherman. When I finally got my house home I checked the National Security Meter and found that Portugal had not declared war, so I was safe in my assumption the homeless defecator was a true Portuguese. I was generally fairly safe, even though the weatherman kept trying to set fire to my belongings. Luckily, my belongings were severely retarded. So the flames licked what was left of the house’s supper. “Don’t get too greedy, now, you rascals!” I told them. The flames spelled out the words to a song yet to be written about my death, seriously fucking with my head.

PART I- I was reading something the other day about, well I don’t remember

Chapter 1: Prologue
Why people would wait for something to happen when they know perfectly well it won’t

Hey, hold on a second.

Uh, okay: some guy decided to live “intentionally” or something and was earthy or something and was a beautiful, complex, and fragile creature and all that.

Meanwhile, I guess there was some other guy, who worked in, like, let’s say an office. He also had some interesting or relevant qualities, though, I’m pretty sure.

Now, between the two of them, they each understood some things that the respective other did not. About life or something. Then there was like some big other, too, just for contrast, or possibly for some other reason.

Their stories intertwined in some way or other and they both came to see something about themselves; each other; and about life in the process. I don’t know, maybe they were brothers, too.

Chapter 2: Our Story Continues

PART II- A Journey of personal discovery

Chapter 3: The time I went somewhere, but changed slightly just to condense things

He felt something when he went down to the baggage claim, when he was out among all of the people, the car drivers with their signs and other humans waiting for family members or for friends which made him feel alone, but the good kind of alone, where no one notices you, and when he got his bag and stepped through the doors he noticed it was warm, that the sun was shining; and he was alone but the people were actually warm too, though. he was used to it this time.

last night he had been drinking with his friend in chicago and had stumbled up the steps and had gotten on the plane and now he was a bit tired, but a good tired, he was visiting his friend.

Chapter 4: So yeah he went and visited his friend and it was fun or whatever

PART III- You have to try to do something I guess, I mean apart from waiting for death.

Chapter 5: Sorry
I don’t want to write, I don’t want to do anything, not even drink, and you don’t want to read this really but you are so bored or something that it is better than going out and trying to look like you care.

I gave my grandmother a butterfly. Silver with magic beads .With a little zipper on top. Unzip the zipper one will find coins long worn from time.ordinary coins nothing special .

Years past i found a magic butterfly .I remember it. I gave it to my grandmother. We sit looking at the butterfly and crying .Why we cry i understand ,the little girl who gave her grandmother a butterfly died,she’s gone forever . I didn’t give my grandmother that butterfly.
A young girl who believed in magic and fairies did . That child is gone she wount return for time has drowned her with age with knowledge and logic.

Now sits a woman with a family of her own .she loves her grandmother but not with the love of a child . And most of the time a woman’s love to her grandparents is mistaken for ignoring and forgetting them.

The new story from G. Arthur Brown, author of Cracked Time, The Silky Ice, Hollywood Forgot the Death, Roses of Secret, The Predator’s Danger, The Slave of the Eye, The Music-Box For the Devil, Flames in the Valley, Azure Edge, The Vacant Witches, The Force’s Ice, Infinite Hunter, Evil Genome, Undead Cube, Seven Monster For Invisible Grave, Adventure is Strange, Out of the Delicate Devils, The Damned Dimensional Affair, Chain Magic, The Sucking Petals, A Big Lightning At Captain Nemo, The Scientist that Must Not Fight, Elysium Without Mad Birds, Brothers is Muddy, The Revolt In the Phantom, Lovely Witch, The Secret Mechanical Fog, Pirate in the Drapes, The Revolt In the Phantom II: Doctor With Vampiric Inheritance, and The Shades of Ancient Space Men:

Lawrence was an author of genre fiction. He lived alone, somewhere in New England.

He sipped a fine cabriolet and looked at his typewriter.

“You know, typewriter. We’ve written a lot of stories together and most of them were just to fulfill deadlines for publishing slots to maintain my position as a midlister living month to month, trying to stay sane.”

The typewriter wrote a short message back: YOU SUCK AND I HATE YOU. KILL YOURSELF, KILL YOURSELF.

***

Lawrence awoke in a panicked sweat. He panted and turned on the bedside lamp.

“By God, I know what my next book is!”

The lamp flashed back to him in Morse code: OH NO YOU DO NOT YOU HACK STOP KILL YOURSELF STOP

***

The lamp woke up and snuggled close to the typewriter.

“I had a bad dream. I dreamed we were the pawns of a genre writer and weren’t in control of our own destinies,” the lamp said.

“Oh my,” the typewriter replied. “I dreamed YOU SHUT THE HELL UP SO I COULD GET SOME DAMN SLEEP!”

Why should I say anything, Tammy said, stroking back her hair as Walter watched the TV. It never moved, the TV. It was always where it should be and always it would. Walter watched the TV every day and on weekends when there was nothing to do he watched it some more. It was as if Walter’s watching of the TV was to some extent a secondary occupation but without the pay.

Why don’t you say something, Tammy said, but it was not in the form of a question. Walter looked up from the TV and gave Tammy a look. She stroked back her hair again, this time more forcefully, then turned and left the room leaving Walter and the TV to their own devices.

Mrs. Wilkins left the office at five. She had worked there for more than twenty years. When she arrived home she undressed and made some tea. She also warmed some leftovers. Upon loading the dishwasher she turned on her TV and reclined. The night was over for Mrs. Wilkins. Just as it has been many nights after she has left the office at five to come home and make some tea with warmed leftovers. When Mrs. Wilkins speaks and no one listens it is because she lives alone unless the faces on the TV count. But what is TV to Mrs. Wilkins. What is TV to anyone.

A man walks into a bar, but he is blind, so he actually walks into a laundromat. None of the machines work because he is also not in a laundromat but in the arms of an angel. The angel says something but the man hears nothing because the angel is merely a sofa at a discount factory outlet. Though furniture does not have speaking capabilities, she does figuratively say, “I’m 50% off!” The man pulls out a wallet with nothing inside except nutrition. In short, he has only pulled out a Summer squash. The produce manager asks if everything is okay, but everything is not okay because produce managers do not scratch at the door to be let out. That is funny though because there are no cats allowed in this particular bar.

Welcome! I'm William Spencer. I was a loyal reader of The New Absurdist and reading stories on TNA was a part of my life in 2004 and 2005. It gave me a lot, surprise, inspirations, wisdom, philosophy, etc at the time when I lose hope for my life. This site is built for The New Absurdist in my memory. Read short stories and you may find something that means to yourself. Now everyone can post stories here. Even if you never wrote a paragraph anywhere before, as long as you want to write, TNA is always open to you.